Comment on the global gaming industry's statement on ICD‐11 gaming disorder: a corporate strategy to disregard harm and deflect social responsibility?
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Comment on the global gaming industry's statement on ICD-11 gaming disorder: a corporate strategy to disregard harm and deflect social responsibility?
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The global gaming industry has adopted a public stance in opposition to the inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD-11.
“The global gaming industry has adopted a public stance in opposition to the inclusion of gaming disorder in the ICD-11 218,219 .”
More limited funding for research and fewer public resources for treatment have been available across Western countries for gaming disorder.
“In comparison, more limited funding for research and fewer public resources for treatment have been available across Western countries 218 .”
From Emerging experience with selected new categories in the <scp>ICD</scp>‐11: complex <scp>PTSD</scp>, prolonged grief disorder, gaming disorder, and compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (2022) · cites this paper as [218]
The main commentary (pp. 2144–2146) discusses gaming-related harms and clinical and public-health needs, but does not compare research funding or public treatment resources across Western countries. The Conflict section says only that the author received no gaming-industry funding; searches for limited research funding and treatment resources found no passage supporting the claim. (LLM, conf=0.76)
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“…industry has downplayed the gambling-like aspects of 'loot boxes' by referring to these schemes as B surprise and delight ^ mechanics that should not be regulated (IGEA 2018) and has disregarded the research evidence of gaming-related harms (King and Gaming Industry Response Consortium 2018).”
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“…3.86 0.13 Kamal and Kamal (2018) 1324/1041 college 21.9(1.6) PIUS Egypt 5.37 0.09 Kandri, Bonotis, Floros, and Zafiropoulou (2014) 177/338 college 20.78(2.18) IAT Greece 3.71 0.02 Kittinger, Correia, and Irons (2012) 79/202 college 20.17(1.44) IAT USA 3.45 −0.08 Kojima et al. (2019) 456/456 high…”
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“…regulation and consumer protection across many jurisdictions (Griffiths, 2018; Environment and Communications References Committee, 2018; King, 2018; King & Delfabbro, 2019; Király et al., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.07.017 Received 25 March 2019; Received in revised form 9 July…”
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“Joint efforts from experts in the medical field, health-related disciplines, sports science and gaming, and esports industries, providing support for professional players and viewers, can make esports not only fun but also safer and healthier (King, 2018).”
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“Although some in the research field share this view, the International Gaming Response Consortium led by King (2018) responded in a commentary, that aside from this discussion, ample evidence exists that excessive gaming leads to problems in afflicted persons and a diagnosis (perhaps to be revised…”
BackgroundProblematic usage of the internet and cognition
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“There is also a lack of clearly reproduced findings as pertains to biological underpinnings, relatively less clinical experience working with these putative disorders, and heated debate around the risk of overpathologizing everyday life, when PUI or IGD are considered and included in modern classification systems of d…”
BackgroundSubtyping treatment-seeking gaming disorder patients
Granero, R., Fernández-Aranda, F., Castro-Calvo, J., Billieux, J., Valero-Solís, S., Mora-Maltas, B., Rivas-Pérez, S., Valenciano-Mendoza, E., del Pino-Gutiérrez, A., Gómez-Peña, M., et al. (2021) · Addictive Behaviors · doi:10.1016/j.addbeh.2021.107086 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
“Parallel to this increased popularity, experts have emphasized the risks of the inappropriate use of video games (King, 2018), particularly among adolescents and young people, who are at increased risk of developing addictive-like symptoms (Sugaya et al., 2019).”
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“However, the developers’ objection to the inclusion of GD in ICD-11 [17, 18] did not align with the existing literature on problematic gaming [20].”
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“This has spawned plenty of nonacademic (for a review see King, 2018) as well as academic criticism, the latter of which is aptly summarized by a recent paper from 37 scholars (van Rooij et al., 2018).”
Background‘It’s concerning’, but is it your concern? Objectivity, advocacy and activism in gambling research
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“The game industry has shown a pattern of arbitrarily selecting these objections and using them as a basis for denying the existence of harmful effects of excessive gaming (King, 2018).”
BackgroundIoannidis, K. (2022) · doi:10.26481/dis.20220623ki
Nkiko, C. M., & Kuss, D. J. (2026) · Addiction & Prevention · doi:10.3390/addictprev1010002
“Six papers, e.g., [13,16,44,54] examined how ethical game design can support responsible gaming and reduce the risk of GD.”
SHARP-G-R: A revised tool for assessing the addictive potential of video games
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- Authors
- King, D. L., & Gaming Industry Response Consortium
- Affiliations
- The University of Adelaide (AU)
- Corresponding author
- King, Daniel L.
- ORCID
- King, Daniel L.
- Venue
- Addiction
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-08-05
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 2145-2146
- ISSN
- 0965-2140 (ISSN-L)
- 1360-0443
- OpenAlex
- W2884319031
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 17.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Addiction (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Open Repository and Bibliography (University of Luxembourg) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Digital Access to Libraries (submittedVersion)
- Adelaide Research & Scholarship (AR&S) (University of Adelaide) (submittedVersion)
- Deakin Research Online (Deakin University) (submittedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- IRIS (submittedVersion)
- Iris (University of Trento) (submittedVersion)
- Lithuanian University of Health Sciences (submittedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) (DE170101198)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Keywords
- gambling addiction, corporate social responsibility, industry advocacy, harm reduction, gambling harm
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Industry, Social Responsibility, Behavior, Addictive, Video Games, International Classification of Diseases
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